Bayonetta

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Bayonetta
A long-haired woman dressed in black with white gloves and glasses brandishes two guns in her hands and one attached behind her right foot. A dark logo with "Bayonetta" in stylized capitals appears above her, and a full moon in a dark cloudy sky appears behind both.
Developer(s) PlayStation 3:
Sega
Xbox 360:
Platinum Games
Publisher(s) Sega
Designer(s) Hideki Kamiya (director)
Artist(s) Mari Shimazaki (character designer)
Composer(s) Masami Ueda (sound director)[1]
Hiroshi Yamaguchi (composer)
Akari Kaida (composer)[1]
Norihiko Hibino (composer)
Yoshitaka Suzuki (composer)
Takahiro Izutani (composer)[2]
Platform(s) PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Release date(s) JP October 29, 2009
NA January 5, 2010
EU January 8, 2010
AUS January 7, 2010
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single-player
Rating(s) BBFC: 15
CERO: D
ESRB: M
PEGI: 18
Media Blu-ray Disc, DVD-DL
Input methods Gamepad

Bayonetta​ (ベヨネッタ Beyonetta?) is an action game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, directed by Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe series creator Hideki Kamiya at Platinum Games in cooperation with publisher Sega. Set in a fictional city in Europe, the game centers on its title character Bayonetta, who can wield four pistols—among other weapons—and perform magical attacks to defeat various enemies. The game has five difficulty settings; its two easiest ones contain a game mode playable with only one button, similar to a mode Kamiya used in Devil May Cry. Its developers designed its characters with modern style and fashion in mind, and composed for it a largely upbeat and feminine soundtrack.

Development of the game started around January 2007, and it was released in Japan in late October 2009. It has been promoted through a television commercial with music by Japanese pop singer MiChi, look-alike searches, a theme for the Google Chrome Web browser, a photo book, and soundtracks. Critical reviews, before and after its Japanese release, have praised its easily learned moves, fast pace, boss battles, "Witch Time" slowdown mechanic, and character and stage designs. However, they lamented inconsistent frame rates, duller graphics, and technical issues in its PS3 port, and its use of camera angles and a disorganized plot in both versions.

Contents

[edit] Plot

 This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (December 2009)

Bayonetta takes place in Vigrid, a fictional city in Europe.[3] The titular character is a witch who shapeshifts and uses various firearms, along with magical attacks she performs with her own hair, to dispatch her foes. She possesses four pistols—two hand-held, and one attached to each heel—and has also been pictured with shotguns, rocket launchers, a glowing whip with a cobra's head at the tip of it, and a two-handed katana. Bayonetta faces angelic and warrior-like enemies that confront and challenge her for reasons she is unaware. She awoke after a 500 year sleep[4] and found herself in an unfamiliar area with no memories of who or what she is. Over time, she begins to remember what caused the predicament she found herself in. While most of the game's plot has not yet been disclosed, what is known is that 500 years before the incident that caused Bayonetta's memory loss, there were two factions of warriors—the Umbra Witches, who are followers of darkness and their counterparts, the Lumen Sages, are followers of light. Both factions mysteriously disappeared from Vigrid under unknown cirumstances.[5]

A male character known as Luka (ルカ?) had met Bayonetta as a child, and is now a "possible love interest" for her even though they "exist in different dimensions" and cannot touch.[4][6] Other characters include Bayonetta's rival Jeanne (ジャンヌ Jannu?), who also wields four guns; the three men Rodin (ロダン Rodan?), Enzo (エンツォ Entso?), and Balder (バルドル Barudoru?); and the young girl Cereza (セレッサ Seressa?).[6] Another intriguing element are the dimensions Bayonetta inhabits as the game's different settings: Paradiso, which generally takes the form of a heavenly yellow or golden valley or palace and is the home of the "Angel" enemies she faces; Purgatorio, a metarealm that functions as an "in between" for metaphysical beings and stands alongside yet OUTSIDE of the plane humans exist on (all beings in and outside of Purgatorio take on a transparent, watery appearance); And Inferno, which is the game's hellish realm that contains infernal demons of the sort that Bayonetta herself occasionally summons with her Witch powers. Further research uncovers that the Witches actually drew most of their power from the Demons that exist in Inferno. It seems that Bayonetta and Jeane are able to traverse all 4 realms as are the Angels, however, most Angels reside in the Paradiso dimension and Demons in Inferno (however few Demons are seen during the entirety of the game)

At the beginning of the story, a flashback depicts a portion of the great battles that emerged between the Umbran Witches and the Lumen Sages. The Umbran Witches were a powerful and ancient clan of women who were capable of projecting magic to their own ends, fueled by the power of the Moon, and the Lumen Sages were an equal group supposedly comprised of men who worshiped the light and were fueled by the Sun. The factions shared two distinct treasures, the Eyes of the World that were separately named the 'Left Eye' and the 'Right Eye'. When these two treasures disappeared, conspiracy broke out between the two groups, and they disappeared also in the midst of a heater conflict that followed. From atop a seemingly endless cliff, Bayonetta and her companion Jeane fight away mysterious, angelic creatures that manifest as spear-carrying warriors and even a red, golden dragon. The story concludes that at the end of the Great War—The Umbra were wiped out as well as their counterparts, the Lumen Sages, and only one member of the Umbran society remained as a direct result of the "Witch Hunts" which began after paranoia spread of the witch's powers.

In present day, a loud-mouthed informant named Enzo has joined up with the present day-Bayonetta, who was revived ten years ago from the bottom of a lake without any memories of who she is, or anything of her true past besides her magical abilities, an ornate piece of jewelry on her chest, and flair. Due to her constant threat of being dragged down to Inferno by the 'Angels', she is forced to put up with their assaults and often bombard their forces. Using Enzo's information, she and him stage a burial for a long-time acquaintance of Enzo, a bar tender and secret arms dealer named Rodin—using Rodin's "deceased" spirit to lure the 'Angels' out into the open. Once there, Bayonetta proceeds to obliterate their welcoming committee, and is shortly after joined by Rodin (who possesses supernatural talents of his own) and ends the confrontation by rescuing Enzo from a large winged Angel seen as a higher breed of the 'Affinity'. Rodin parts with the two saying that he'll rush on an unidentified "special project", but not after recommending that they "bury a certain somebody with a flower bed" to make sure that the 'Angels' don't come back and take him.

On the way to Rodin's, Enzo discusses Bayonetta's untimely situation of "getting screwed" into fighting her battle with 'God's messengers' everyday and regarding information about the jewel on her breastplate, much to Bayonetta's annoyance before discovering that a wire bug has been planted on Enzo—A car pulls off into a different street behind them as she tosses it away. As if on cue, a giant cargo plane containing a number of white-robed figures prepares to crash into the highway and nearly destroy their vehicle before time is warped and Bayonetta flies onto one of the plane's wings. Ready to fight an Angel, she instead finds a blonde-haired woman who cuts a swathe of holy destruction in her wake and apparently knows Bayonetta, temporarily fighting the Angels together before turning their guns on each other. The woman vanishes quickly as time speeds up again, the entire fight having taken place in a matter of minutes, and Bayonetta nimbly rescues Enzo and their ruined automobile from the resulting explosion.

From there on out, Bayonetta follows Enzo's information to a city called Vigrid where the inhabitants are "very close to Paradiso" (which according to Rodin's summary is very 'disturbing' and bad for his business) which resolves the number and breeds of Angels she has to fight. Upon arriving in the city by train, she is constantly haunted by a chilling male voice that seems to assure of her survival so long as he is present. Vigrid is home to a number of curious Umbran artifacts that Bayonetta gradually works through as she invisibly journeys through the city while in Purgatorio, along the way inadvertently running into her stalker, a journalist named Luka whom she occasionally flirts with, who upon witnessing her involvement in his father's demise when he was a child has sacrificed a great portion of his time into hunting her down and awaits the moment when he can expose her , even going as far to plant the bug on Enzo. After she loses him, she meets the blond-haired woman who invokes more memories of her past, revealing the blond-haired warrior as Jeane and provoking a fight between them, though Jeane appears to be uninterested in ending their battle until Bayonetta discovers a lost child named Cereza inside of an abandoned old church who wears glasses like [Bayonetta] does and carries around a stuffed teddy bear. This encounter is interrupted by the arrival of a stern, three-headed dragon monster called 'Fortitudo', a being who clearly serves as a higher branch of the Angel society. Before the fight is over, Fortitudo seems to retreat and sends Bayonetta flying to the ground. When the two finally converse properly, Bayonetta ignores his rambling and instead chooses to pick a fight with him, ending with Fortitudo summoning lava from Inferno which begins to flood and burn down Vigrid.

Eliminating several Angels while escaping from the burning Vigrid and parts unknown to her, Bayonetta meets up with both Luka and Cereza for the second time and rescues them from the Angels which seem to be following another target instead of herself. Bayonetta guides and protects Cereza, who annoys her by calling her "Mommy" all the time and clinging to her, while they reach the more stable parts of Vigrid while continually building up her memories of being a member of the Umbra, being "killed" and furthermore sealed in a state of stasis by Jeane, and the source of her powers. Bayonetta and Jeanne fight for a fourth time in a much larger city, first upon the wing of an airplane where Jeane uses her motorcycle, then atop a missile, and then finally on a building where Jeane discovers that she has finally regained her memories and reveals their past friendship, then rescuing 'Cereza' from a stray missile and dying in the process. Bayonetta proceeds with Luka and Cereza, before Cereza begins to hear the same voice that Bayonetta was hearing earlier and claims that it is her "Daddy". Bayonetta follows her and meets Father Balder, the supposed last of the Lumen Sages who has taken up residence in what is presumably the 'highest point of Lumen hierarchy and society'.

Balder exposes Bayonetta's destiny to join with him, his 'Right Eye' and her 'Left Eye' so that they could become the 'Eyes Of The World' and shape the universe in the Creator, Jubilieus's images. Cereza is absorbed by Balder who transforms into an angelic creature and battles Bayonetta amidst a crumbling, falling wreckage. Though Bayonetta appears to win this battle, and she and Luka reconcile after she mystically delivers Cereza who is now revealed to actually be her younger self brought to the future to remind Future Cereza/Bayonetta of her destiny as the 'Right Eye' quicker, back to her bed in her time period, Balder returns and claims that the 'Right Eye' cannot be destroyed and somehow overwhelms Bayonetta, taking her back to a magnificent Lumen statue of Jubilieus that towers over Vigrid. With Bayonetta imprisoned, Jeanne returns, as Balder reveals that she had somehow become corrupted to serve his purpose in bringing Bayonetta closer to him throughout the story, and ascends the statue on her magically-enhanced motorcycle by riding along the surface of a missile used to launch Jubileius into orbit. Arriving just in time to save Bayonetta, she rescues her from film of the statue's eye and appears to fade before Bayonetta, using her 'Right Eye' powers, battles the pre-manifested form of Jubilieus. Upon her victory, the statue crumbles and, in a twist of irony, still appears ready to destroy the world as its flaming remains plummet. Bayonetta and Jeane team-up to destroy the remaining pieces, and they descend to Earth in a fiery comet.

An unknown amount of time passes, and a funeral is being held in a bright graveyard by Rodin and Enzo. A cloaked nun is speaking for them, and Luka arrives to drop off flowers and claim that their chase is over (as he became aware that his father's death was not Bayonetta' action, but the Lumen Sage's). However, Jeanne reveals herself and dishes out a whirlwind of pain on the Angels that arrive to claim Bayonetta's soul from the tomb—Only for her to shoot up from the grave and defend Luka, Enzo, and Rodin while she and Jeane tear up the Angels that arrive. At the ending, the gang stands together in a group photograph with Bayonetta and Jeanne ontop of a Yellow car.

[edit] Gameplay

Combat in Bayonetta, a single-player action game, resembles that in Hideki Kamiya's prior Devil May Cry.[7] The player is encouraged to explore ways to dispatch enemies with as much flair as possible through the use of both melee and long ranged attacks, complex combo strings, and multiple weapons. Special commands or actions are woven into events, finishes, executions, and unique "Torture combos" in which Bayonetta summons a variety of devices to deal devastating blows to her enemies. Such devices range from guillotines to iron maidens.[8] Bayonetta also has unique but limited abilities that her enemies do not possess, such as "Witch Time", which activates when the player makes a well-timed dodge to an attack. This temporarily slows time to allow Bayonetta to inflict massive amounts of counter damage before the enemies can react.[9]

The player can perform many standard action game moves—"double jump, lock onto enemies, rotate the [third-person view] camera, backflip to avoid attacks, swap between weapons on the fly, break apart background objects ... and break through doors"[10]—and can unlock the ability to transform Bayonetta into a panther or one of various other living creatures to enhance her abilities.[11] Many enemies and objects drop halos, which resemble the rings from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog games, when destroyed; the player can collect the halos to buy upgrades and weapons.[3][10] The player can also use enemy weapons, either to directly attack or as props for movement. Bayonetta's strongest attacks transform her hair into giant boots, fists or monsters that assault the enemy.[3]

The game includes five difficulty modes: "Very Easy", "Easy", "Normal", and two harder modes.[10] On Easy and Very Easy, a "Very Easy Automatic" mode is made available that can be played with only one hand: the game positions Bayonetta to perform attacks on enemies, and the player only needs to press one button at certain points unless they wish to perform their own choice of movements or attacks. Kamiya, who first added such a mode to Devil May Cry, posted a video on the game's official website in which character designer Mari Shimazaki demonstrated the mode (which Kamiya "jokingly called 'Mommy Mode'") in Bayonetta.[12][13] He expects gamers to first complete the game in 10 to 12 hours, but believes that the game's rating system (similar to that of Viewtiful Joe, which he directed) and the pursuit of high scores will provide replay value.[7] The game has a fixed button configuration; Kamiya said "we found that there wasn't really a point to changing" it.[13]

[edit] Development

... it's been eight years since [the first Devil May Cry (DMC)], so of course I wouldn't create a game that hadn't progressed from those days! Of course, if there hadn't have been DMC, there wouldn't be Bayonetta, which has evolved from DMC.
—Kamiya, April 2009[14]

Kamiya directed Bayonetta at Platinum Games since around January 2007,[15][16] and the game was "more-or-less complete" by October 21, 2009.[17] The group developed for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console, while Sega—with Platinum Games's original data and support—ported the game to Sony's PlayStation 3.[18] Shimazaki designed the game's characters to be "fashionable", with "subdued" features.[19] She designed the titular character to fulfill Kamiya's request for a modern, female witch that wears glasses and wields four guns,[15] and the two settled on her original concept for the character despite her work "over a year" on other concepts.[20] Bayonetta emerged as a long-haired, black-clothed witch with a beehive hairdo (in place of the traditional pointy hat) and glasses (which Kamiya "really pushed for ... to differentiate Bayonetta from other female characters and give her a sense of mystery and intelligence").[15] Conversely, she "didn't require a huge amount of effort" to design Bayonetta's short-haired, red-clothed rival Jeanne, who merely wears her glasses on her head above her eyes. She added plumes to Jeanne's handguns to add movement to the design, and thick makeup to Jeanne's face to "make [her] feel like something out of the 1960s". Though Shimazaki preferred Bayonetta, Jeanne turned out to be the more popular of the two witches among Kamiya and the development team.[19] Still, in an April 2009 interview, Kamiya called the former "in many ways ... my ideal woman".[14]

Sketch of two long haired, black-clothed women in two poses, side by side. To their left is a cat-shaped earring. Above the woman on the right are six circular items of gold jewelry. Around them is a white background with Japanese and English text throughout.
Mari Shimazaki designed the witch Bayonetta with long limbs to avoid a short, thin look in the final game.[15]

Though the game's director "deliberately created Bayonetta from scratch" and has called its story "completely original", he has admitted using "some names from Scandinavian mythology" and playing "about half of" Devil May Cry 4 for research.[14] As a fan of folk music, he also named Bayonetta's set of four handguns after the old English ballad "Scarborough Fair", and its individual guns Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.[21][22] Hiroshi Yamaguchi focused on composing music for the game that has a "nice up-tempo beat" and expresses femininity through female choirs, pianos, and other "'beautiful' instruments"—though some tracks also use pure orchestra or folk instruments[23]—while Kenichiro Yoshimura transformed Shimazaki's Bayonetta design into a game model and used the digital sculpting tool ZBrush to create normal maps for its details. He worked with Shimazaki on the model's makeup, referred to foreign models with similar bodies, and said "I really wanted to get Bayonetta's backside perfect. I guess I am into that sort of thing..."[24][25]

To Kamiya, the core theme of the game and its protagonist's attacks is "sexiness".[7][26] He said Bayonetta's ability to transform into a panther reflected the developers' desire to "make her a sexy witch".[11] To emphasize "her femininity and sexuality", the developers made Bayonetta lose rose petals instead of blood when hit, and used a butterfly motif that manifests in her wings (which appear in her shadow and during double jumps), her giant fist attack (a butterfly appears on the back of the fist), and the arms of her glasses.[27][28] Her giant boot, fist, and monster attacks reveal some of her body—her clothing is composed mainly of her hair—and when the player targets an enemy, red lips mark the enemy's chest; this led IGN to call the developing game a mix of "action and a great big helping of fan service".[3] The game's sexual tone is reflected in its age rating in the United States: the Entertainment Software Rating Board rated the developing game "Mature" ("M", for ages 17 and older) for containing "Partial Nudity" and "Suggestive Themes", as well as "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence," and "Strong Language".[3] (By comparison, Japan's Computer Entertainment Rating Organization rated the game "D", also for those ages;[29] the British Board of Film Classification rated the game "15" for "strong language and bloody violence";[30] and it is rated "18" under the PEGI system used in the United Kingdom and other European countries for its use of violence and language.[31])

[edit] Versions and merchandise

Demos of Bayonetta were released on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network in Japan on October 8, 2009,[32] and outside the country on December 3 that year.[33][34] The full game was released on October 29, 2009 in Japan,[35][36] and is scheduled for release in other regions in 2010: January 5 in North America, January 7 in Australia, and January 8 in Europe.[37] Sega announced on August 26, 2009 that Japanese pop singer MiChi would perform "Something Missing", written for a Bayonetta commercial.[38] The commercial, which has since been shown on the game's official Japanese website, touts the game as "non-stop climax action (∞クライマックス・アクション?)" and features a model dressed as Bayonetta with a lollipop.[39]

A 150-song, five-CD soundtrack for the game was scheduled for a November 4 release.[40] Another soundtrack CD, Rodin's Collection, was created for inclusion with pre-ordered copies of the game. It comes packaged in a brown jacket styled as a menu from Rodin's bar "The Gates of Hell".[41] Sega of Europe plans to release a ∞ Climax Edition (or simply Climax Edition) of the game in PAL regions—specifically, the UK, France, Spain, and Australia—which will include the game, the Rodin's Collection tracks packaged in a black-and-red jacket with the game logo, and an artbook. Pre-orders "in most European territories" will come with a replica of one of Bayonetta's "Scarborough Fair" guns.[42][43]

Bayonetta Witch of Vigrid, a book with pictures of the title character and an "interview" with her, was released on October 22, 2009.[44] By then, a Bayonetta theme had been made available for the Google Chrome browser.[45] At the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Sega chose Penny Drake to model as Bayonetta after auditioning 100 women.[46] The company then joined men's lifestyle website Maxim.com to run a contest to find women who looked like Bayonetta. The grand prize winner, who was announced on November 23, 2009, received an Xbox 360, a 50-inch plasma television, and a copy of the 360 version of the game.[47][48]

[edit] Original Soundtrack

The Bayonetta original soundtrack has only been released in Japan. The album contains five discs with 150 tracks used in the game. Helena Noguerra provided the main vocals for the theme of Bayonetta.[49]

Tracklist

[edit] Rodin's Collection

Rodin's Collection is a special soundtrack included with Japanese preorders of Bayonetta. Its six tracks are scheduled for inclusion in the game's Climax Edition for PAL regions.[42][49]

Tracklist
# Title Japanese title Length
1. "One of A Kind"   One Of A Kind 5:00
2. "Riders Of The Light"   Riders Of The Light 2:27
3. "Battle For The Umbra Throne"   Battle For The Umbra Throne 2:24
4. "Theme Of Bayonetta—Mysterious Destiny"   Theme Of Bayonetta  Mysterious Destiny 2:52
5. "The Old City Of Vigrid"      
6. "The Gates Of Hell"   The Gates Of Hell 4:00

[edit] Reception

[edit] Pre-release

Screenshot of a woman with revealing attire in an outdoor setting. Above her is a dark, giant leg, composed of and attached to her hair and attacking a staff-wielding enemy to the left of her. Behind them is a fountain and various buildings. In each corner (except the bottom left) are game scores and indicators.
Though one reviewer praised the game's use of "glorious European architecture",[3] another said "Some of [Bayonetta's] larger hair-based attacks can ... obscure the action."[50]

Cam Shea of IGN Australia praised the developing game in March 2009 as "absolutely stunning-looking" and "a balls-out action game set amongst glorious European architecture", and called its titular witch their "new favourite videogame character ever ... even cooler than [Devil May Cry's main character] Dante ... she has the playfulness and versatility of Dante, but wrapped up in some of the most visually inventive combat we've seen in a long while".[3] Similarly, GameSpy's Gerald Villoria praised the game in July that year as highly original to the point that it could end up like the poor-selling Ōkami (another Kamiya-directed game) for it—"the premise, the characters, the action sequences, they're all entirely different from anything else I've ever seen," he wrote—and called its lead a "constantly moving", "remarkably multi-faceted" character "presented in an ultra-stylish way".[51]

Matt Leone of 1UP.com said of a pre-release version of the game's PS3 port at E3 2009: "The first thing I noticed was that, at the end of a normal combo, you can hold down the final button in the string to continuously fire gunshots—which looks incredibly cool when you kick someone and then keep your leg pointed at their face as your foot pours bullets on it." He added, "I'll be amazed if Bayonetta doesn't end up being one of the best action games this year."[10] Staff at GameSpot UK were also generally impressed with the PS3 port, which they played on June 3. They called the "Witch Time" mechanic a "cool move" and one of the two boss battles they fought "pretty intense", and said "it's easy to see the similarities between the two over-the-top action games [Bayonetta and Devil May Cry]". They added, "Rampant violence and sexism is par for the course" in the game.[8] 1UP's staff again played a PS3 version for 15 minutes on the weekend of August 31 that year, at Platinum Games's "Feel Bayonetta" event in Tokyo's Roppongi district. They said that it "was very blurry" compared to a 360 version displayed there, and that its frame rate "was all over the place. ... it was often hard to keep track of the action [in one scene] because of the graphical issues on PS3."[52]

Bayonetta was one of twelve games to receive a Japan Game Awards 2009 "Future Division" award at Tokyo Game Show 2009.[53][54][55] At the show, Daniel Feit of Wired News played both versions and felt the 360 version was "a little brighter and more colorful ... while the PS3 version cut scenes feel like you're watching a movie through a sepia filter." He found the game's commands easy to learn and perform, but criticized the camera angles sometimes used in the game in both versions: "When Bayonetta runs too close to the edge of a scene, the camera can automatically focus on her and the wall instead of showing the enemies cornering her. Some of her larger hair-based attacks can also obscure the action."[50] Other reviewers compared her to former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin for her appearance and her glasses in particular.[56][57][58] Kamiya has said of the comparisons, "in the US they say Sarah Palin. In Japan, they always bring up people like [singer-songwriter] Angela Aki. I think they say something similar in every country. That country's famous glasses girl. ... The thing with that impression is, you know, we've put out plenty of trailers now, and when you play the game and see the cutscenes, I think people will recognize Bayonetta as Bayonetta. Then people will look at Sarah Palin and say that she looks like Bayonetta."[58]

[edit] Release

 Reception
Review scores
Publication Score
PS3 Xbox 360
1UP.com A−[59] A[60]
Eurogamer — 9 out of 10[61]
Famitsu 38 out of 40 40 out of 40
Game Informer 9.00 out of 10[62] 9.00 out of 10[62]
GamePro — 4.5/5 stars[63]
GamesRadar 10 out of 10 10 out of 10
IGN 8.2 out of 10 9.5 out of 10

(UK: 9.6)
Aggregate scores
GameRankings 89.50%[64] 91.80%[65]
Metacritic 91%[66] 93%[67]

A few days before Bayonetta's release, Japanese gaming publication Famitsu awarded its Xbox 360 version a perfect 40 out of 40. The PlayStation 3 version received a slightly lower 38 out of 40, due to scores of nine from two of its four reviewers.[68] As others did pre-release, the two reviewers criticized the PS3 port's frame rate problems; one thought the difference from the 360 version was slight.[69] One was quoted as saying, "the fun is the same, but the controls and overall look [on the PS3] feel a bit more unwieldy than the Xbox 360 one, which is a shame."[70] UK magazine Edge awarded the eleventh 10 out of 10 score in its 16 year history to Bayonetta a month later, and called it "a beautiful and graceful fighting game that lets imagination loose, and winks before slapping Dante, Kratos and every other hero back to the drawing board". Andy Robinson of ComputerAndVideoGames.com, affiliated with Edge through Future plc, said, "We can't say we were expecting that."[71]

Ryan Clements of IGN gave the 360 version a 9.5 out of 10 and the PS3 version an 8.2. In separate reviews for each version, he called the game "stylish, entertaining", and "unique", and its voice work "a bit campy but still extremely enjoyable", but said its "plot is all over the place" and "isn't as skillfully told as game stories like Mass Effect and Uncharted".[72][73] In his 360 version review, he called the game an "incredible work" with "final moments ... alone worth the price of admission", but said it sometimes exhibited minor "screen tearing and slowdown, which happen during explorative sections and intense action sequences, respectively".[72] He said the PS3 version was "still a fun game" but had "a lot of problems, primary among them being the excessive slowdown and loading":[73]

When the player pauses the game during combat or a cutscene, there's noticeable loading before the pause menu is displayed. There's loading when you pick up an item and there's loading as you scroll through menus. There's even an obnoxious load time just to view a list of save files. For a game that's supposed to emphasize quick action and style, these loads are almost deal-breakers.[73]

Another Future plc review site, GamesRadar, gave the game 10 out of 10. Nathan Irvine of their UK division said it "nails ... the epic scale of everything that unfolds before your eyes and the manner in which it's delivered", believed it was better than God of War Collection, Devil May Cry 4, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and praised its "superb action" and humor (such as "Luka doing his best Assassin's Creed impression by looking moody in an Altair/Ezio style hood"). However, he said "the only time anything makes sense with Bayonetta's story is right at the end", and complained about some of the game's Quick Time Events (QTEs):[74]

... every now and then you’re instructed to complete them mid-cutscene to, say, dodge a falling satellite and the like. The problem is they happen so quickly that some times you’ll miss the prompt and have to re-run the whole sequence again, which is insanely frustrating.[74]

In contrast to Irvine, IGN UK's Martin Robinson said "it's not Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden or God of War that's the best point of reference but Super Mario Galaxy": he felt Bayonetta, like the Nintendo game, "loves to tinker with the player's sense of perspective, and fights that begin on street surface often wind their way up the surrounding walls". Robinson praised the "fluid, intuitive and ultimately satisfying" combat system and "its conveyor belt of ever-more inventive foes. From the lowliest grunt to the most hulking of bosses", and said, "Even after two playthroughs we're discovering more and more to Bayonetta's move set each time we go back to the game." Still, he felt "a little too much time is given over to the exposition".[75]

[edit] Sales

“ Here in Japan, where PS3, in a bad week, outsells Xbox 360 10 to 1, the 360 version of Bayonetta had no chance of topping the PS3 version in sales. But it does seem to be performing pretty well. ”
 – Anoop Gantayat on Bayonetta release-day sales[76]

Sinobi, a Japanese blog known for its early sales data, reported Bayonetta sold 138,000 copies—93,000 for the PS3 and 45,000 for the 360—on its day of release in the country.[76] Media Create reported the PS3 version sold 135,242 copies and was the top-selling game during its week of release there, while the 360 version sold 64,325 copies and charted at number seven.[77][78] Phil Elliott of GamesIndustry.biz called the 360 version's lower sales figures "a very strong performance for the Microsoft platform, relative to installed base".[79] The two releases fell to number eight and number 15 respectively the following week.[80]

[edit] References

General
Specific
  1. ^ a b Loe, Casey; Des Barres, Nick; Kohama, Dai (June 2009). "Bayonetta: Angels Will Cry". Play (Fusion Publishing): 31. 
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  4. ^ a b Anderson, Luke (August 22, 2009). "Bayonetta Updated Impressions". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/bayonetta/news.html?sid=6216007&mode=previews. Retrieved October 16, 2009. 
  5. ^ (Adobe Flash) TGS 09: Bayonetta Trailer. IGN via YouTube. September 24, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqgtpTkCQ3Q. Retrieved December 23, 2009. 
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  16. ^ Mielke 2008, pp. 1–2. "[1UP.com:] In June of this year, we trekked down to Osaka, Japan, to meet up with the latest incarnation of Hideki Kamiya's development group, Platinum Games. ... [Hideki Kamiya]: It's been about a year and a half since we started."
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  22. ^ Mielke 2008, p. 1. "1UP: What are the names of her weapons? HK: As a set, they're all Scarborough Fair. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme..."
  23. ^ Yamaguchi, Hiroshi (May 29, 2009). "The Music of Bayonetta". Platinum Games. http://platinumgames.com/2009/05/29/the-music-of-bayonetta/. Retrieved October 11, 2009. 
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  26. ^ Mielke 2008, p. 5. "So the whole, the theme of her attacks is 'sexiness.' ... I'm having fun with the team thinking, 'So what should we do with Bayonetta to make her look sexy?' And they're like, 'Oh, maybe this move might be good. This motion might be good.' So that's what we're thinking right now."
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  45. ^ Glasser, AJ (October 9, 2009). "You Got Lombax, Bayonetta And Monkey In My Chrome". Kotaku. http://kotaku.com/5377704/you-got-lombax-bayonetta-and-monkey-in-my-chrome. Retrieved October 10, 2009. 
  46. ^ Kessler, Michelle. (June 5, 2009) (Adobe Flash). Video: Bringing Bayonetta to life. USA Today. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/06/67685135/1. Retrieved October 15, 2009.  (A higher quality version of the video is available on YouTube.)
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[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonetta"